Saudi Arabia is a full-fledged member of the Olympics and like any of the 205 countries in the Games, the Kingdom has the right to select the athletes it would like to represent it, without being told who it is that can be sent. To be told, from outside the Kingdom no less, who it must send to the Olympics, or else be banned from the Games, is a blatant form of discrimination that the Kingdom is ironically being currently accused of. This is in the wake of the response to the announcement made by Prince Nawaf Bin Faisal, president of the Saudi Arabia Olympic Committee, that the committee would not be endorsing any female participation in the London Olympics. The US Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation found the Saudi stance "unacceptable," called it discrimination and expected the International Olympic Committee to "exclude Saudi Arabia". The foundation's demand for the Kingdom's expulsion from the Olympics for not fielding women is interference in Saudi Arabia's internal affairs. The foundation is also not acting as an impartial, just observer. If the foundation was so concerned about injustices done to women, it would have demanded that, for example, Israel be prevented from participating in the Olympics. It was Israel, in the three-week monster aggression on Gaza in 2008-2009, which killed over 1,100 Palestinians, almost half of them children and women, the very people the foundation wants to safeguard. A sporting boycott of Israel would send a powerful message that its wanton murders are abhorrent and its occupation as a whole is unacceptable. But Israel has never been banned from the Olympics. There is gender discrimination in sports, and much of it is found in the West. At the renowned Masters at Augusta which is now in progress, there is a men-only membership policy at the Georgia club. At this time every year without fail, in America's Deep South, questions are raised about the relevance and fairness of exclusive, male-only clubs in the 21st century. Since opening in 1933, the Augusta National Golf Club has not allowed women to join. Statistics show that in the West male athletes get $179 million more in athletic scholarships each year than females, and that although approximately 40 percent of sports and physical activity participants are women, only six to eight percent of total media sports coverage is devoted to their athletics. And when our female athletes are abroad, they are not always welcomed with open arms. Two basketball players of Arab descent, in Switzerland and America, were told they could not play wearing their hijabs, citing that the sport has to be neutral, forbidding religious symbols, even though they are seen all the time adorning the necks of foreign athletes. The other explanation was that hijabs pose a safety risk, although the only way a headscarf could prove hazardous to the owner or others is if the pins used to hold it down protrude, which was not the case with the two female basketball players. To those critical of Saudi sports policies, Prince Nawaf did not exclude the possibility that Saudi women would be allowed to compete in the Olympics outside of the official delegation. This arrangement previously saw equestrian competitor Dalma Rushdi Malhas win a bronze medal in show jumping at the Youth Olympics in 2010. He said Saudi women taking part in the Olympics on their own are free to do so, "according to the wishes of students and others living abroad," and that the only proviso was that the Kingdom's Olympic authority would "help in ensuring that their participation does not violate Shariah law." Of note, Prince Nawaf also said the Kingdom's Olympic Committee was not endorsing any female athletes for the Games "at the moment" which could leave the door open for future developments. (Alaa Abdel-Ghani is an Egyptian writer based in Cairo.)
